There’s more than just giant robots and massive monsters in the sci-fi action-adventure 'Pacific Rim': Director Guillermo del Toro has also infused it with human drama and character stories. (The giant robots are cool, though.) Del Toro tells USA TODAY's Brian Truitt what’s in store for monster-movie fans, beginning with the setting: The film starts about 15 years after the gigantic Kaiju first emerged from the Pacific Ocean and mankind built robotic Jaegers to battle them. We’re not doing all that well, either, del Toro says. “They are evolving, they are becoming bigger, stronger and smarter, and it’s a very tough war.” Warner Bros. Pictures

Del Toro is making sure the camera sees the true impact of the Kaiju attacks, even among fearful pedestrians. “We’re trying very, very hard to make the fight scenes in the movie very visceral, very much like you are there,” he says. “It’s a very brutal series of battles we wage.” Warner Bros. Pictures

Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) is the point-of-view character for the audience. He's a washed-up Jaeger jockey looking for a second chance after he has been out of circulation for five years — “which is exactly the same number of years that I’d been away from directing,” del Toro says, laughing. “He’s a guy who has a very noble heart and a very good presence, but the things he’s trying to surmount are big.” Warner Bros. Pictures

Raleigh's partner, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), has an equally large backstory. “She is facing her own personal demons when she attempts to ride a Jaeger and try to control it,” del Toro says. “She has a very personal story of destruction with the Kaiju — they basically took everything away from her.” Warner Bros. Pictures

The Jaegers are controlled by two people connected through a neural bridge, and the fact that they have to work together to defeat a monster is a metaphor for the movie as a whole. “Once you’re in the robot you have to become one,” del Toro says. “You have to put aside everything you hate or love about the other person and just work together or we will not survive. That was the idea, that leaning and relying on each other is what makes us stronger.” Warner Bros. Pictures

To build this future world from whole cloth, del Toro says his crew had to do it from the inside out in terms of design. “We needed to create pamphlets, magazines, credentials, signing, construction manuals, logos, uniform patches, everything. We had to literally create every detail.” Warner Bros. Pictures

Each of the Jaegers and Kaiju they battle are designed to have a distinct personality and power set. “They’re essentially destruction machines,” del Toro says. “One of the things the movie tries to do is evoke an incredibly rousing sense of romantic adventure — the big adventures you’d want to see as a kid.” Warner Bros. Pictures

Raleigh, Mako and their fellow Kaiju-battling humans aren’t a fully funded army — they’re more a ragtag resistance. “No one believes in them anymore,” del Toro says. 'Pacific Rim' is a movie designed to put movie fans in the middle of this grand battle “and have characters that hopefully everybody can get a very good emotional grip on and enjoy the ride.” Kerry Hayes, Warner Bros. Pictures